Question

When will a lot of Vietnamese overseas stop portraying bad images about Vietnam on the Internet?

Answer 1

I have been living in Vietnam since I was born. I accustom myself to all of the things oversea Vietnamese people hate about the current Vietnam. They just want some changes like I do. Unless Vietnam become what they want, they will never stop.

In my opinion, communism has many flaws and human’s nature make it worse. Taking advantage of these flaws, human exposes their greed. Hence, the corruption and persecution.

Experienced investors understand this problem. Bad images from biased news will not make them change their minds. Only facts, figures and indices will.

Answer 2

Original question and accompanying comment:

When will a lot of Vietnamese overseas stop portraying bad images about Vietnam on the Internet?

Read posts on Facebook, BBC,… Vietnam is a bad country. They hate communism, they have told bad things about communist countries. They have made people believe that communist countries are bad, evil. And people hate Vietnam because of its name: communism. Vietnam needs a good image to attract FDI.

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Believe it or not, foreigners are not a bunch of dumb people, especially investors. They do their own assessments of Vietnam before investing. They don’t do investment by reading Facebook posts.

They are also pretty good at knowing if the conditions are actually good or bad. So doesn’t matter if you post 1 billion posts saying Vietnam is paradise on Earth, when it’s not true, they’ll know.

Look at the US, the amount of online criticism of the country and its government, from the Americans themselves, will make the government of Vietnam faint. But look at FDI inflow, the US is number 1 in 2018. Apparently, people are smarter than what you give them credit for.

Also, why do you care about a fake image? If Vietnam is bad, then it is bad, doesn’t matter how much you buff it up online. Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it not a pig. What you should be more concern about is how to make real improvements to Vietnam , how to make it actually good . Not about how to make good images (but fake).

It seems you don’t have a good grasp of how the real world works.

Answer 3

Many of the Viet Kieu, Vietnamese living overseas, left when South Vietnam fell, or as soon as the opportunity presented itself. They lost everything that they had in Vietnam. They have every reason to be less than happy with the communist takeover. Why would you expect them to have anything good to say about Vietnam?

I have met a number of the younger generation Viet Kieu who have returned to Vietnam, working and living there. While they may not be pro-communist, those that I have met, in the 20s and 30s, and older, are positive about Vietnam.

I have a couple of friends who are former colleagues, who are in their 40’s to 50s, who fled Vietnam when they were kids, along with their parents and other family members. As with the younger generation, they have returned to visit Vietnam and are very positive, not pro-communist, but very positive about Vietnam.

This is a long winded way to say that for those who lost everything they will be bitter. You will have to wait until they die off. The younger generation have a different view.

Answer 4

You know… The world doesn’t work that way. As much as I hate to say this, bad images about Vietnam are made by Vietnamese (especially those who work and live in Vietnam). Vietnamese are not only notorious for misconducts which they carry out on foreign soil. Vietnamese tourists are, in some way, shuned by some countries. Our society is corrupted and our economy is not really effective. It’s our own fault that our images are bad. And it’s our reponsibility to fix that. Don’t blame anyone since everyone is part of the problem.

Answer 5

Be very careful here, because I can sense this is a sensitive topic for you. Try and remember that there are a lot of good people in every group, and some bad people.

Now that that is out of the way, let me lay out a little framework. Not all cultures, societies, governments, and groups are equal. There are some societies that seem to gravitate toward a certain state or another.

It seems that at our current level of human development, Communism gravitates first toward massive authoritarian rulership by a small elite - this is because a lot of people disagree with Communism as a path, but if anyone disagrees Communism loses. This is a system that only works with full agreement. Naturally, the rulers need to stop dissent. In all Communist countries they have found it necessary to kill, silence, or otherwise block all other ideas - at the expenses of lives and ideas.

The next stage seems to be where the ruling party enjoys massive privilege and continues to find ways to exploit those privileges, and they start to lose to revolutionary zeal from before.

The late stage is collapse. This is when human behavior has led Communism to a state of almost complete corruption of politics, human rights, values, and economy. Where so few have so much power (the Party) and the rest have so little.

The late stage is where the nation decides to either switch to totalitarianism (North Korea) or open up to capitalism (Vietnam, China, Cuba, Laos), or lose Communism altogether.

So if you assume Vietnam is Communist, you will have to explain how exactly it is Communist. You will find more socialist benefits in America than Vietnam, where you are on your own if you are old, have to pay for your own school, and where the rich make billions and the poor make a few bucks a day.

I think that overseas Vietnamese have seen the so-called Communist party steal every penny from the country's future - and watched all the smartest, brightest, and best people either shut up and endure it or get the hell out as soon as they can.

This is the reality, and while I am willing to talk about how accurate Marx's critique of capitalism was, I am less convinced by his solution. Everything since the Manifesto's publication has been pretty downhill (maybe we can blame Lenin).

I think that the Viet Kieu have seen the benefits that other nations provide - of course, much of this was bought at the destruction of the environment (industrial revolution) or overseas colonies. Yes Vietnam suffered a terrible fate at the hands of Western powers (and some Eastern) but keep in mind that Vietnam was a colonial power itself not too long ago, and Communism is as foreign as democracy.

It is unfair to say Vietnam is a terrible place, that is a monolithic assessment of a great nation of amazing people. But I think they are justified in criticizing the “Communist” government.

Answer 6

I think you get the wrong idea. Investors are all for profit. If you have a place with suitable conditions for them to make money, they will come to you.

If you want more investors, improve yourself instead of worrying about a bad image. If you want a good image then create that yourself. Stop trying to shut every mouth off. You can’t.

Answer 7

Do I hate Vietnam? Absolutely not.

Some kids in YouTube or Facebook seem understand nothing on Vietnam. Maybe they don’t know what Vietnam had suffered, since it had long gone 50 years ago.

What I want to tell in my message is, Vietnamese, no matter where you live, you are our brothers and sisters.

Now, why they do have hostilities with Vietnam currently? I think it is sensitive detail, but let’s face something, okay man?

Of course they hate commies. Because they were victims of them. After 1975, Vietnam had suffered much from communist agenda, even later at 1986, we changed. They hate Ho Chi Minh as well.

Corruption: in there, no matter it is democratic or communist, but when you can’t work for your country but for your own sakes, you are a corrupted person. Vietnam has so much corrupt people.

Vietnamese international and domestic policies are being regarded as “terrible”. They have already known that, Vietnamese policies to the Vietnamese in Vietnam mostly limiting freedom of religion, press, communist propaganda education and poor infrastructure development even it is increasing. Meanwhile Vietnam bows head to China and Russia, two most-oppressive and totalitarian countries and hostiles towards the United States and the West. So they hate too.

Other side, I don’t see Vietnamese overseas hate Vietnam for other else. They respect and love Vietnam by all heart, they embrace Vietnamese culture. They send money for Vietnam. Yet, Vietnamese mainlanders ignore them. Really sad.

Oh, and, by a way, again, I want to send you a message. Remember those guys?

In this May, 2017, those guys are gonna play our first ever FIFA World Cup for 11 players, the U20, in South Korea. Vietnam has climbed into a new height.

They can be our chance. Unite with them, no matter what. Show the world, Vietnamese from Vietnam and overseas are one people. Please realize this. Back those U20 boys. They are our future. They will be our ambassadors. We must take this.

Abraham Lincoln once said: “ If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves ”. We are now freemen in this world, no matter what. We have to unite and show our powers! Because this is our country!

Once Vietnamese in around the corners in this planet work together, it will definitely have this result:

We can destroy the rivalry between Vietnamese from Vietnam and Vietnamese overseas, when we together, become one.

Answer 8

I don’t know if you see that the audience of the type of the articles you meantioned are mostly Vietnamese not people who make FDI decision.

The difficulty we are facing in attracting FDI is not a good or bad image but the skill of the workforce, the infrastructure, and administrative process. We could either address the problems or pretend that we don't have any and let foreign investors discover it themselves. From the way you put it, I feel like you want the later option in which a good image may help a tiny little bit

Good FDI requires transparency.

And hey, bad FDI loves corrupted government so bad image is in fact very helpful there if you just simply want FDI.

Answer 9

Well most of them just tell the truth, except some groups that make up stories. I don't dare to do that because I'm in VN.

Answer 10

Calling oversea Vietnamese “bad” won’t make Vietnam look better. Blames rarely solve any problem.

I would rather have you:

Be skeptical and objective when you assess facts and perceptions . Vietnam certainly has shortcomings in many areas (politics included). But Vietnam has also improved significantly in many others (politics also included). Once you have facts objectively assessed, it is then much easier to evaluate other people’s perception, and to defend yours.

Widen your reading . Plenty of people and websites praise Vietnam ranging from its economic progress, education achievement, culture, cuisines… Oversea Vietnamese make up only a small percentage of oversea peoples looking into Vietnam.

Learn to ignore persistently bias people . Haters gonna hate. Just ignore them

Become a role model yourself . If you want people to see Vietnam good, make sure you, as a Vietnamese yourself, look good. Hope this Gandhi’s quote suits you: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”